I'd never heard of any of this so of course just spent time googling and wiki'ing. Can I say that I am highly amused that 'CassandraClaire' looks *exactly* like how a woman who ran a HarryPotter fanfic website and has three cats should look?

Yeah, I had to laugh a little when the search results came up. Then I found out why she was so famous, and I laughed even more.

Although I don't feel smart enough or knowledgeable enough (even remotely!) to post in this thread, I'm going to risk it because you all have always been nothing but nice to me.

I am shocked that there are so many fake postings on here that it brought you to this!! (Though, I have to say, it is very impressive investigative work (and math!), blade!) I am so naive!!! Honestly, it never even occurred to me that people would post fake baby names in the announcements section. That's just stupid and mean. Do you know if those are somehow removed when they make the lists of names from the announcements?

Trolls, or fakers, I have always assumed are doing it because they enjoy watching us scurry to reply and discuss a scenario they have created and that only they know is fake. That drives me crazy, but I am terrible at spotting them because my instinct is to just believe people. It definitely makes me mad. And I'm wondering how it happens that these people get outed -- is it in the thread; does someone confront them there? Or is their thread just shut down? I just hate to think I'm putting so much thought into helping other people when they're not real, but at the same time, I don't want to start doubting everyone. UGH! Just the fact that they are making me doubt people makes me so angry.

For any other math people out there (and to answer your question, Blade), I decided to run a few independent samples t-tests, grouping data from before the fourth quarter of 2012 (so, 1/12, 2/12, and 3/12) and after (4/12 &1/13). Using Blade's calculations, I analyzed whether there was a statistically significant difference in the proportion of girls to boys, proportion of multiples to singletons, excess girls (observed/predicted), and excess twins (observed/predicted). I didn't really expect to find much since our sample size is so small, but there was a statistically significant difference in the amount of excess girls (t(3)=-5.45, p<.05)!!! Specifically there was a smaller proportion of observed/expected girls in and after the fourth quarter of 2012 (M=1.30, SD=.02) than before (M=1.44, SD=.03). So...good work team sleuths!! Maybe as our sample size grows we'll find more statistical differences!!

I was also wondering whether there is a difference in the prevalence of multiples based on socioeconomic status (SES)? I'm thinking that those with higher SES might be more likely to use fertility medication which, as stated in the original post, lead to higher rates of multiple births...right? I can also imagine that the mean SES of nameberry members is a bit higher than US national average as well. If these two assumptions are correct, it may not be fair to compare nameberry to the general US population (which is where we're getting our stat of 3.31% twins). Of course, my assumptions could be incorrect and this would have no baring on the excess report of female births.